The motorcycle spun off to the side of the road, clattering into a parked car, the alarm wailing through the burst of broken glass.
One down.
Alex, shaken from the death she’d just caused, recomposed, rattled through the gears, and powered down the long road that wormed through the city like an arterial vein.
‘Just keep going.’ Sam assured her. ‘You’re doing fine.’
She nodded unconvincingly, then yelped with fear as a bullet shattered her wing mirror. The other biker was closing in and as Sam glanced into his own wing mirror, he could see the driver tactfully weaving behind them.
Moving targets were harder to hit.
But not impossible.
Behind the bike, Sam could see Matt’s car chasing them down. Despite the man’s cockiness, Sam knew Blackridge wouldn’t send just anyone after him. It would be someone Wallace trusted. Someone who would get the job done.
There was only one way out of this.
Up ahead, they were quickly running out of road, as it split into a T-junction. To the left was the turning towards the motorway and Sam signalled for Alex to take it.
‘I need a clear shot,’ Sam demanded and as they approached the junction at a frightening speed, Alex yanked up the handbrake and turned. The momentum of the car drove it forward, the rain spraying up from the tires as they locked, the vehicle sliding to the right. As it did, Sam lifted the gun, drew his eye level with the sight and pulled the trigger.
The bullet blew out the visor of the biker, sending him spiralling off the bike and a burst of blood and glass into the night sky. The motorcycle toppled to its side, slid towards them but Alex slammed down the handbrake, bursting forward up the junction and allowing the bike to slam into the chain-link fence ahead.
Two down.
Alex took the motorway at over ninety miles per hour, the car practically leaping onto the dark, wide road as they took the slight incline. The road was empty beyond the lights of an overnight lorry in the far distance. They were heading out of town, where the police would be too busy dealing with the mess they’d left behind.
The lights of Matt’s car joined them on the motorway.
Alex took a few deep breaths, her eyes locked on the slither of road her headlights presented. Sam slid the clip from the gun, counting the four bullets he had left. As a truck barrelled past on the other side of the motorway, the inside of their vehicle was bathed in light and Sam snapped the clip back. As they approached the next exit, Sam could make out an industrial park in the feeble glow of a few street lights.
Four large factories framed a car park, with articulated lorries locked away for the night.
‘Take the exit,’ Sam said calmly.
‘It’s a dead end,’ Alex replied, the tremor in her voice betrayed her calm.
‘Trust me.’
Alex nodded and glanced into the rear-view mirror. The headlights of their pursuers were closer and gaining fast. At the last possible moment, she spun the wheel, the back of the car swinging wildly to the right and she wrestled the wheel to defeat the wetness of the road.
The car behind raced forward and Alex slammed her foot down on the pedal. The car lurched forward, evading the Blackridge attack, and zipped down the dark, bendy road towards the industrial park. Sam spun in his chair, looking out through the shattered window.
All he saw was darkness.
With the motorway clear and the mission at stake, there was no doubt in Sam’s mind that Matt was screaming for the car to be turned around.
They would soon be in pursuit.
As Alex sped towards the industrial park, Sam knew they had the upper hand, if only for a minute.
They had better make it count.
Chapter Six
‘When are you coming back?’
Natalie ‘Nattie’ Stone’s lower lip trembled as she spoke and it broke Alex’s heart. At fifteen years old, Nattie was already destined for big things. Her grades were off the charts and on the few parents evenings Alex had been able to attend, they’d told her how Nattie was already on the radar of some of the country’s biggest colleges.
Cornell had been calling.
Columbus too.
While it was embarrassing to step into the parental role, Alex knew they couldn’t rely on their mother. Rhonda Stone wasn’t a bad woman. When she was herself, she was a kind soul and had a smile that could power the city of New York.
But those days were few and far between.
Her addiction to OxyContin started when Alex was only seven years old. She had fuzzy memories of her dad being around back then, her parents cooing over Nattie in between the marijuana smoke and the rattling of pill bottles. Two years later, when Joel arrived, her dad took off, leaving Rhonda with three kids and an itch she would never be able to scratch,
At ten years old, Alex was changing nappies, picking up supplies from the store, and working her weekends cleaning up hair in the local barber shop. The African American community in the Bronx was close knit, and she was watched over by the locals.
Regi ran the barber shop, and she fondly remembered his pearly white grin peeking through his bushy beard.
As her mother spiralled further down a drug addled rabbit hole, Alex missed more and more of her lessons, skipping out on school to put more money in her pockets and more food in her siblings’ stomachs.
It was tough.
By the age of fifteen, Nattie’s age now, she’d been expelled for slamming a girl’s head against a desk after the girl had uttered a snide remark about her mother.
Alex wasn’t defending her mother’s honour.
She was defending her own.
Without school, she swept up more hair and soon found herself hanging around with some of Regi’s customers. The talks of cars, chop shops, and street races were as common as discussions about the weather.
Her ears
